Twenty in Their 20s

Jacob Lewkow

Under her leadership, Voters Not Politicians has done something unheard of in modern Michigan politics: marshalled a grassroots, shoestring, volunteer-powered effort to change the state's constitution.

KATIE FAHEY, 28

President,
Voters Not Politicians

Katie Fahey orchestrated an all-volunteer army of Michigan residents to gather more than 425,000 voter signatures to change the way legislative district boundaries are drawn — and it might not have happened without clipboards.

Fahey, the 28-year-old founder and president of Voters Not Politicians, learned quickly last year that gathering valid signatures from voters for a citizen-led initiative to change the state constitution would take more than boots on the ground.

It would take supplies, namely extra-long clipboards, to dispatch volunteers to street corners, fairs and festivals.

And at $2 or $3 apiece, the prospect of a bulk purchase of 5,000 clipboards was not financially feasible for a campaign operating on a shoestring budget, Fahey said.

"Clipboards were going to cost more than the cost of printing petitions," Fahey said.

As Fahey built an organization last spring, the group's volunteers would often problem-solve in real time through social media.

On the group's Facebook page, Andrew Banka of Ann Arbor came forward said he could mass produce 5,000 clipboards from masonite hardboard at his work shop, Airflow Sciences Corp., in Livonia.

In a matter of weeks last summer, the citizens group solved its clipboard conundrum — at 10 cents apiece.

"That is the story of our campaign," said Fahey, who designed recycling and environmental sustainability programs before she launched an anti-gerrymandering crusade. She recently quit her job as a program manager for the Michigan Recycling Coalition to run the Voters Not Politicians campaign full-time.

Voters Not Politicians has pulled off a feat that's nothing short of remarkable in modern Michigan politics. Well-financed special interest groups typically spend between $1 million and $2 million for paid street workers to gather signatures.

Until Fahey's campaign came along, the only well-organized groups seen as having the statewide grassroots networks needed to marshal volunteer signature-gatherers are the anti-abortion group Right to Life of Michigan and the state's two largest labor unions, the United Auto Workers and the Michigan Education Association.

Several people who got involved in the campaign were skeptical they could overcome the signature-gathering hurdle (the petitions are still pending approval for the Nov. 6 ballot from the Board of State Canvassers and face a new legal challenge).

But Fahey always emphasized, "we have people power," said Rebecca Lenk, a financial analyst from Canton who volunteered to collect signatures.

Fahey's quest to put a proposal before voters to establish a citizens commission for redistricting started with a Facebook post two days after the November 2016 election: "I'd like to take on gerrymandering in Michigan, if you're interested in doing this as well, please let me know."

"Quickly, I got a lot of people messaging me, asking 'How can I help?'" she said.

Over the winter of 2017, Fahey and the disparate band of Facebook friends started studying redistricting laws and court rulings in other states to try to craft a proposal that could pass constitutional muster in Michigan.

With an abundance of eager volunteers, Fahey designed the campaign to have 14 regions with a regional director in charge of 300 captains, who then had teams of four to 60 people each that gathered signatures in all 83 counties. Over 110 days between August and December last year, the teams collected 425,000 signatures, providing padding above the minimum needed in the event of a legal challenge, Fahey said.

Fahey proudly touts the clipboard as a crucial tool in bringing the organization together.

The 17-inch long clipboards were designed to serve three purposes: Hold the legal paper-size petition; accommodate an extra sheet for voters to write down their name, phone number and email address, to build a voter Rolodex for a fall campaign; and to display a congressional district map on the back to show voters how politicians draw their own districts following each census.

Fahey insists she's an independent voter who just wanted to change a two-party political system that has left people dissatisfied.

"To me, that meant we needed a systemic change," she said. "This is something that should be fair no matter what party you support."

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